130 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ham. who was also a member of Council in 1766 ; he afterwards attained the 

 rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army. He was engaged in the 

 border sltirmlshes on the isthmus from 1754 to about 1758, and was afterwards 

 appointed Commandant at Newfoundland. 



Ldoutenant-Colonels Horseman, Kllison and Mercer, who were afterwards 

 appointed to the Council, were the officers in command of the regiments which 

 came from Louialbourg. They all retired soon arter to England. 



Charles Lawrence was a Major in Warburton's Regiment of Infantry. He 

 came up with the army and was engaged during 1749 and '50 in the French 

 ware at Cobequid. He acted as Brigadier General under Amherst at Louis- 

 bourg ; he was a m.'^nilber of the Council and sworn in Governor of the Province 

 on the death of Governor Hobson ; the first assembly was convened during 

 his administration, (2nd October, 1758) ; he died unmarried on 11th October, 

 1759, it is said of an inflammation, caused by overheating himself at a ball at 

 Government House ; he was deeply respected by the whole community, and 

 the Legislative Assembly caused a monument to be erected to his memory 

 in St. Paul's church " from a grateful sense of the many important services 

 which the Province had received from him during a continued course of 

 zealous and indefatigable endeavours for the public good, and a wise, upright, 

 and disinterested administration." This monument has now disappeared 

 from St. Paul's church. His escutcheon remains in the East Gallery. 

 Lawrence, though an active and zealous governor, by his desire to 

 favour the ofRcere of Government with a partiality for his military friends, 

 brought on himself an organized opposition from the leading inhabitants of 

 the town, who petitioned the Home Government for redress of their grievances, 

 •whicJi they in a great measure attributed to the Governor and his Lieutenant 

 Colonel Monckton. His resistance to the desire to call a Legislative Assembly 

 was among the chief charges against him. His death shortly after the 

 petition put an end to the difficulties. He was succeeded by Judge Belcher 

 as Administrator of the Government. 



Charles Morris was a native of New England; he was Captain of Provincials 

 under General Pepperrel at the siege of Louislbourg in 1745. He had been 

 engaged by Oovernor Shirley, of Boston, in a survey of the interior of Nova 

 Scotia with a view to British colonization in 1745. He also commanded one of 

 the Provincial Companies sent to Minas under Colonel Noble in 1747. He was 

 in Halifax in 1749, and in company with Mr. Bruce the Military Engineer laid 

 out the town and peninsula. He was appointed to the Council in 1755. Though 

 Surveyor General of the Province he acted for some time as Judge of the 

 Supreme Court during the time of Chief Justice Belcher, which offices were 

 both afterwards filled by his eldest son Charles. Captain Morris died in 1781, 

 and was succeeded in tJie office of Surveyor General by his son Charles, whose 

 son, the Hon. Charles Morris, also filled the same office and wias a member 

 of Council in 1808. He was the father of John Spry Morris, Esq., afterwards 

 Surveyor General, who was the fourth in succession who had charge of the 

 Surveying Department in Nova Scotia. There are numerous descendants of 

 Captain Morris In Halifax. 



Jonathan Belcher, the first Chief Justice, was a native of Massachusetts, 

 son of the Governor of that province, of an eminent colonial family ; he was 

 appointed Chief Justice of Nova Scotia in 1754, when a young man, and admin- 

 istered the government on the death of Governor Lawrence ; Chief Justice 

 fBelcher arranged and revised the laws as they appear on our first Statute 

 Book, and rendered good assistance to Governor Lawrence in founding the 

 settlements at Horton, Cornwallls, Falmouth, &c., in 1758, '9, and 1760. Judg.? 

 Belcher died poor ; the Legislature voted a provision to his only daughter. 

 His son, the Honouraible Andrew Belcher, was for many years a resident in 

 Halifax and a member of Council, 



Captain Wm. Cotterell was the first Provost Marshal or Sheriff (there 



